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September 11th – September 17th

The Valley Nerd Watch!

Are you going to see Nerd Nite tomorrow? You should! It’ll be fun! It’s going to be about bats and manipulative presenting tactics! Educational, fun, all the things you like. We’re finally going after that lucrative bats and sociology crowd.

We’re also going to be at The Academy of Music on the 23rd of October! They have 800 seats, did you know that? Did you know that they have more seats than we knew they had and that if people sat in all those seats it would be nervewracking but also if there were a bunch of empty seats it would be a different sort of nervewracking? Anyway please attend!

Hey have you seen the nice retro poster designs that Aaron Wood does? Why not buy a few? They’re all cool and it’s nice supporting a local artist, isn’t it?

Also we forgot if we already said this recently but are you interested in a gigantic number of old comics? We’ve got a gigantic number of old comics. That’s where we keep getting these header images. If you want expensive rare ones, we’re happy to take your money. If you want every issue of Spawn, we’re happy to take a very little of your money!

A Kenyan photographer who lives and works in Nairobi, Mimi has practiced all over the world! From her studies in Cape Town, to residences in Berlin and exhibitions in Mozambique, she’s doing a whole ton of excellent photography! Learn more about her artistic practice at this talk!

Each Tuesday, meet up in the Teen Room and walk as a group to the Radioplasma Recording Studio at 306 Race St. to learn about media literacy, get hands-on experience with song recording, journalism, storytelling, and sound mixing! Also, oddly enough, carpentry. No one tries to make it happen, but everyone comes out knowing more about how to make those nice invisible wood joins.

Teens! Come hang out in the Teen Room, your designated room, to create! Write, draw, make jewelry, design things in 3D, play with their technology! Use the library’s resources to make your dreams… reality.

Learn how to re-purpose discarded book pages into paper flowers using the Kusudama technique! All materials are provided, but feel free to bring your own decorative accents for the center of the flowers! Amber Ladley is a lifelong crafter and creative entrepreneur, and finds a lot of joy helping people learn how to do stuff that reduces waste! So find joy with her at this session!

Comic Books:

The big event this week! “Join us on FRIDAY, September 15th for our annual celebration of defying the odds for one more year! We’ll have our usual spread: Pizza, soft drinks, and amazing (totally vegan!) cupcakes! ALL attendees will receive a door prize, and one lucky winner will get to be our latest LIFETIME VIP, with free admission to all future Day Pass events and FIFTEEN of our sweet new $5 Tokens to spend however they like! We’ll also have a special prize for the winner of our Modern Myths Trivia Contest, where we see who knows the most about the history of the store! Doors open at 6:30 PM and pizza arrives at 7:00. This event is open to ALL AGES, and is totally free, our gift back to the community that’s kept us around for so long. Call or stop by the store for any additional details.”

Community:

From the site: “Marie Betts Bartlett, author and illustrator of The Little Yellow Trolley Car, will describe her strategies for writing, illustrating and discussing her children’s picture book Poppy’s Purpose, which is a true story based on a subway car that survived the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.”

Computers:

MYSTERY LOCATION at 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Making Smart Technical Decisions – Monthly Full Stack Meetup

“In this meetup, we’ll discuss technical decisions and their impact over the span of years. When is the best time to migrate from an antiquated system that is becoming a pain to manage? Is it worth months of effort to port functionality to the latest and greatest service? Could we avoid these problems up front? Can we migrate incrementally without getting stuck?” Figure out how to resolve technical issues that snag great projects! Check out the Meetup to make sure you know where to meet up! https://www.meetup.com/wmasswebdev/events/242981781/

Agile! It’s the currently in vogue method for getting things done, and it seems to work rather well for a lot of folks! Learn how to make it work even more excellently by speaking with this group of excellent ScrumMasters and associated experts! There’s pizza and discussion as well as a presentation about specific techniques!

Librarian and officially licensed Tech Wizard Dylan Tibert will teach you the fundamentals of designing your own website using WordPress. Classes will be a one hour lecture followed by a hands-on workshop. Perfect for experienced computer users who are beginners at web design! This class covers how to improve the page you built with CSS, SEO, and analytics!

Entertainment:

Thoreau hated the train, and we’re going to use the Palmer’s own joke here because we love it, he “railed” against it! But nonetheless it was an important part of his life! He went to lectures, visited friends, and traveled around New England, Palmer, and the to the Midwest! Corinne Smith will let you know why!

Listen to Steve Forbes, noted winner of the HIGHLY PRESTIGIOUS “Crystal Owl” award, speak about the only way for your life to get better is for him to get way more money as quickly as possible. And really we just want to focus on the fact that this extremely wealthy and powerful man with a storied life full of basically non-stop achievement of everything he could want is really putting the danged Crystal danged Owl award front-and-center. We suppose it’s to burnish his bonifides but for real. We’re going to start saying this site has won the Spangled Starling award 9 times every time we send an email.

A big celebration of Eid al-Adha, the Sacrifice Feast, which is one of the biggest Muslim holidays celebrated worldwide every year! Author and commentator and broadcaster Haroon Moghul will be there talking and we’re guessing signing books, and you’ll be able to get food for $8 if you’re a non-student!

Play the Ukulele? Just like the look of it and want to try? Play songs and learn at the Jam!

Saturday, September 16th

MYSTERY LOCATION at 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Game of Thrones S1E4 & Potluck

Everyone really liked having a GoT meetup, so they’re doing it again! The first time the plan was to watch just the first episode, but it wound up being the first three! See if this one can keep itself under control! Bring food or drink to share!

A sign-a-long for babies and toddlers! We imagine the babies are quite a bit less capable of the whole “along” part of the singalong but they have fun. There’s also always a snack, so your kids will not turn into the scary kind of Gremlin.

Movies:

Before the Flood is a film about the ways in which climate change affects our environment and what society can do to save some of what we love. A discussion of the film and climate change will be held after the screening. We recommend holding a discussion about ice cream in your tummy after that if you want to cheer up a bit.

“Stan Sherer’s film, The Brush Shop, will be shown at the Westhampton Public Library. This film tells the story of a vital Northampton industry through interviews with former Pro Brush people, archival photographs and commercials and advertisements from different periods.” Learn more about the history of your lovely Valley!

Play D&D with excellent pals, new players welcome! There will be pizza, an integral part of playing D&D!

Science:

Monday, September 11th

World War 2 Club [50 Conz St., Northampton, MA 01060] at 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Nerd Nite NoHo!

It’ll be another wonderful time with the nerds! Meet new people, have a good night out at a fine local establishment, and learn about how to influence people with presentations and how the bats are doing! Did you not know the bats were having a hard time? They were! We’ll find out why and whether we should be nervous about these cute critters having a hard time again!